1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a postage meter capable of remote recharging and, more particularly, relates to a postage meter system for electronically recharging a postage meter from a remote location.
2. Description of the Related Art
Postage meters conventionally operate with at least two internal accounts or registers for recording postage. One of the internal registers is a descending balance that shows the amount of postage available for use. Another of these registers is an ascending balance that shows the amount of postage that has ever been printed by the meter. The sum of the descending balance and the ascending balance must remain constant between recharging of the amount of money resident in the postage meter for distribution as postage. In mechanical meters, cogged wheels with digits on their rim surfaces similar to the odometer in a vehicle serve as the balance accounting mechanism. In electronic postage meters these mechanical wheels have been replaced with nonvolatile memories, the balance contained in the nonvolatile memory being displayable on an electronic display.
Conventional postage meters must be physically carried to a local supervising post office, station, or branch so that they can be recharged with money for distribution as postage. At the local supervising post office a clerk first verifies that there is no sign of tampering with the postage meter, then the clerk adds the ascending balance and the descending balance to determine a value of new postage which was previously loaded into the postage meter. This amount is compared with the amount of postage purchased that was recorded in a post office log book at the time that the meter was previously recharged. If the two amounts agree, additional postage is then loaded into the postage meter and payment is made to the clerk at that time.
Remotely rechargeable postage meters have previously been proposed. In such postage meters a meter user or licensee obtains additional postage by telephone to access a prepaid bank account of the user or licensee which is held in escrow. However, this arrangement requires the forethought of a prepaid bank account. Furthermore, the funds in the prepaid bank account do not draw interest for the meter user or licensee. Additionally, the meter user must predict, in advance, an amount of funds which will be needed in the prepaid bank account so that they will be available upon demand. Thus, the prepaid bank account is inflexible and difficult to use by users who have an unpredictable amount of mail to process. Furthermore, such prepaid bank account requires an overhead which small businesses may not be willing to undertake.